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Winter edition of 'American Ancestors', page 28:
'Considering that Manhattan is the 'island at the center of the world', there has been remarkably little interest in the earliest permanent European settlers of the Dutch colony of New Netherland. There is no hereditary society of descendants of ﬁrst settlers, as there are for other early settlements in America.'
Here's the link to the publication: http://www.americanancestors.org/uploadedFiles/American_Ancestors/C...

Just wondering why there is n't? Is it because it was for such a short period of time and only the English part is interesting? Dunno know just asking. At the same there is much spoken of the Dutch who went to New Amsterdam but the Belgium part is (Not here at the project) in general also not known. So it has to come from people like you and the others who do such an amazing thing to bring it up. For this especially but i also mean it in general. Same as Kwame and others or searching for slavery historie and such. I tnink it so special to have these big projects that cover a important part of history.
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I found the article fascinating. Are there indeed only FOUR verified passengers of first ships with descendants? Would it be possible to list that out?

I can give you a thought reaction as to "why no hereditary society" based on no research at all.

Manhattan was built as a trading center I presume on Dutch city models. It was never meant to be residential in a sense -- people built their mansions "in the suburbs" -- progressively further and further north. Or of course out to Long Island or New Jersey.

So as soon as they made any money at all they were out of the "land" and the municipality -- and in the United States, it all about the land, since we had rather a lot of it (or so the settlers thought) compared to Europe.

Now why does New Paltz have a hereditary society? New Paltz, New York is based around farmland. Manhattan never was.

Just a guess!

Someday I will link you to the article that examines a "land claim" for Trinity Church. It's pretty hilarious.

I'm not sure if that's how it was for New Amsterdam, Erica.
For sure, the main intention of the Dutch West Indies Company was simply to trade. However, later on, the powers in Holland saw it as something strategic in the relationship with the English - but not strategic enough, because they preferred to hand if over and concentrate on the Far East and Guiana.
In fact, Holland had a lot of trouble getting - and keeping - settlers over there. I think the article says it well: Holland was rich, so why go to New Netherland? Many of the settler made money, and then preferred to go back home. Perhaps that's a reason why New Amsterdam, from the start, was so 'cosmopolitan'. The Dutch wanted to go back, but the other nationalities less so. I think that the Dutch surnames remained dominant because new settlers wanted to marry into the powerful Dutch.
I sure want to list out the earliest settlers, at some point. Also, as you may have noticed, I started to list the private genealogy pages of some of these families - as they should be some reference point for people searching (rather than pick up errors from wherever).
If we could bring together the living descendants to work in this project, the project would become even more meaningful!

Private User

6/28/2011 at 8:32 AM

Do we have tables with numbers of Dutch settlers by location and date? Have we started to figure out those researching their Dutch roots, where they're located? There are Dutch surnames in upstate New York for example - later migrations I assume than the first settlements.

It's like New Paltz in a sense. There are towns that are *very* Dutch in the Hudson River Valley area. And then on out on their migration paths.

My guess is you will find many like your friend "the boss" - Dutch and Italian is a "classic" mix in New Jersey ....

I started with an Excel sheet, just so that I could sort things. But, it's impossible to maintain (takes too much time). I would rather hope that, at some point, we could extract the data from Geni and then start sorting.
BTW, does anyone know a software program that can translate gedcoms into a spreadsheet table? Unfortunately, .PAF is not understood by Excel :-)

Private User

6/28/2011 at 8:45 AM

You need to get with Randy Stebbing George! Or Bjorn. Or Shmuel. Or Henn. Maybe Liivi? We have a group of techies - I leave it to them.

Private User

6/28/2011 at 9:40 AM

George, it's rather a job, but I can try with a short list if my idea that it might be possible getting an excerpt from a GedCom (= database oriented?) to an Excel sheet by transferring it first to an .txt and then by making a Lijst again. You loose all the make-up, but that doesn't matter for an old lady with beauty of herself...... Personaly -as a publisher- I don't like amateuristic make-up, so maybe we can make it a beautiful book later? It's only that I no longer work with Windows and have to buy Excell-software. I think my husband will like that too, so maybe I can work on his Apple.

I did that quite often in Windows when I was still making programs with dBIII and dBIV for my business-marketing. Now it's worth trying, I like new experienced, you know?

When looking for info on New Sweden, I've run accross some info on New Amsterdam. I wonder If some of the info you may be looking for may be mixed with the swedish. Between fighting with each other the two ended up getting married to each other from time to time,

Indeed, Marvin! In fact, some Dutch were operating on behalf of the Swedes when establishing New Sweden. And, a few Swedes came first t New Amsterdam. Interesting to note is that 'Sweden' is not the Sweden we know today - but included modern Finaldand and Estonia. Here a link to a map showing Scandinavia in 1645 (Sweden in green) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Danmark-Norway_in_1646,_Treaty_of....

That explains a comment in a book I read about a Swedish farmer. when drafted, could send a farmhand in his place and that a lot of those "draftees" where Fin farm workers. (one of those "now it makes sense" moments)

The book was from the original Swedish, so the author didn't try to explain it. (it was written late 1600)

Private User

6/29/2011 at 7:39 PM

There most certainly is, and has been since 1885, a hereditary society of descendants of ﬁrst settlers of the New Netherlands Colony: the Holland Society of New York (http://www.hollandsociety.com/index1.html). Membership is open to descendants in the direct male line of an ancestor who lived in New Netherland before or during 1675.

Indeed Jeffrey, the article wasn't very accurate in that respect. And, the Society's 'Halve Maen' publication seems to be a great source for genealogy too. I think that the article's writer merely wanted to highlight that more effort goes into the 18th century - which doesn't surprise me given that most living descendants will have their roots in that century, rather than in the 17th. BTW, the Holland Society and other groups are references on the New Amsterdam - Research page.